When I was a kid adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious
diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what
with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill both ways
through year 'round blizzards carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-A average
despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way in
hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I
had it and how easy they've got it!

But....

Now that I've reached the ripe old age of twenty something, I can't
help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so f**kin'
easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a goddamned Utopia!
And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got
it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet--we wanted to know
something, we had to go to the goddamned library and look it up
ourselves!
And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a
letter--with a pen!--and then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the f**kin' mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

And there were no MP3s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had
to go to the goddamned record store and shoplift it yourself! Or we had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over some part of it and f**k it all up!

You want to hear about hardship?

You couldn't just download p*rn! You had to bribe some homeless dude to
buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! It was either that or jack-off to
the lingerie section of the JC Penney catalog! Those were your options!

We didn't have fancy sh*t like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone
and somebody else called they got a busy signal! And we didn't have fancy
Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was
it could be your boss, your mom, a collections agent, your drug dealer,
you didn't know!!! You just had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space
Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked a$$! Your guy was a
little square! You had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win,
the game just kept getting harder and faster until you died!

Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there was no such thing as stadium
seating! All the seats were the same height! A tall guy sat in front of you, you were screwed! And sure, we had television, but back then that was only like 4 channels and there was no on screen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday
morning... ...D'ya hear what the f**k I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK, you spoiled little bastards! That's exactly what I'm talking about!

You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled, I swear to God!
You guys wouldn't last five minutes back in 1988!

Mon May 19, 2003 9:25 am

RapCat

Joined: 31 Jul 2002
Posts: 1016
Location: San Jose

Brings back memories... your right about kids today, I recently went to pick my cousin up from high school, and like every kid there was driving a BMW, what the fuck, when I was in high school I drove a straight beater.

Mon May 19, 2003 9:32 am

am01ne

Joined: 23 Apr 2003
Posts: 563
Location: Cybertron

hahaha that was great.

* ahh jc penny catalogues... such fond memories.

Mon May 19, 2003 9:34 am

emynd

Joined: 13 Mar 2003
Posts: 2786

This post was good. Thanks.

Mon May 19, 2003 9:34 am

hugh grants hookerGuest

i agree with everything you said, but...

i think WE were the spoiled ones when it comes to cartoons. sure, we only got them once per week. but what we watched on that one day was much better than thier current 24-7 cartoon options.
just for example, we had: turbo teen, transformers, he-man, shirt-tales, gummi bears, voltron, the alf cartoon, etc...

today they have:... nothing. they gotta watch pokeman, and powerpuff girls. shit like that.
anime is sooo fuckin gay. we had the hookup. i realize that a few of the older cartoons were 'early anime', but fuck... at least their mouths moved when they talked. haha. and when they fought their bodies movied. now the cartoons just strike poses and fly at each other. fuckin gay!

also, check the music we had... now think of what they hear now on the radio. ugh.

i'd rather grow up in the 80's than now.

Mon May 19, 2003 9:35 am

hugh grants hookerGuest

...also in the 80's all of our toys were diecast metal. try finding a toy now-a-days that isnt made of plastic or paper or something. its shitty.

Mon May 19, 2003 9:38 am

am01ne

Joined: 23 Apr 2003
Posts: 563
Location: Cybertron

no doubt man. the 80s were fucking gold. I wouldnt have wanted to be a kid in any other decade.

see I disagree with the cartoons rant, because if you actually watch cartoons now a days, which I (sadly) do a lot of, you realize that except for certain japanese anime (Beyblades, digimon, etc.), cartoons have actually become a lot more complex and a lot more intelligent and appeal to a larger demographic because they have much better writing and the jokes are understood by even older people, just watch dexter's lab, or fairly odd parents, or cow and chicken (RIP) and you'll never be able to find a show like that in the 80's.

As far as action cartoons (Transformers, He-Man, etc.) the Japanese anime more than make up for them, just look at show's like Gundam Wing and Dragon Ball Z, and Evangelion.

I think the reason every keeps saying that 80's cartoons are better is because they no longer watch cartoons on a consistent basis, and they no longer remember all those crappy cartoons that were in the mix of the goodness (don't get me wrong though, a lot of 80's cartoons were amazing). And let's not forget, the Spiderman series didn't start till the early 90's and that, to this day, is THE greatest action cartoon series ever made.

and now you all know how big of a loser I am, thank you for reading this crap though.

OK, voltron - what was that? I'm in the UK and I don't think we got it, yet I hear references to it a lot. Same with Giligan's (sp?) Island - what was the big fcukin deal with that? We had Dangermouse - that was mega.

Mon May 19, 2003 10:45 am

hugh grants hookerGuest

Sarcastro wrote: the Japanese anime more than make up for them, just look at show's like Gundam Wing and Dragon Ball Z, and Evangelion.

all of those suck. those are exactly the shows i spoke of when i said "strike poses and fly at each other". they are wack.

and as far as the 'more complex and better writing' in cartoons now... you're thinking of Adult Swim shows. thats much different.

the 80's would have dominated that genre too if it had existed. in the 80s there was no cartoon chanel. therefore there was no need for shows to fill an adult viewing time slot. thats where these new shows come in, they are targeted at adults. i'm sure if a little kid watched 'undergrads' or that show the milkshake and the ball of meat, they would think it sucked. they just wouldnt get it. its all about target audiences, and the 80s hit it perfectly. there were cartoons for every type of child.

Yeah fucking cartoons suck today compared to back in the day. Transformers and voltron were anime by the way. They were brought over to the states in the eighties. But anywho. There are some good cartoons on nowadays, but the majority of them suck. and what is up with the real live people shows that kids are into. Those are fucking dumb too. Like the power rangers and stupid shit like that. The only show that I think I watched after school or on saturday mornings when I was a kid with people in it was pee wee's playhouse.

Yeah Imagination is gone from kids today. everything is so detailed and perfect. We were some imaginative little kids. you had the legos that were just plain blocks and if you wanted something to look like something you had to build it yourself. Now legos come with everything pre built and shit.

remember when there wasn't remote controls and you had to sit 2ft. from the tv so you could change the channel. and then the remote with the long cable that everyone would trip on and almost break their neck. those were the good old days.

And fucking kids today and their cars. I got my first car when I was 23 and I bought it myself. Fucking parents buying their kids $20-30,000 cars.

And the girls nowadays are better looking. What's up with that. I would say that there was a 25% population of girls in my high school that were really good looking. I went to a party with all of these little high school kids were at and there were all kind of banging chicks there that went to the high school that I graduated from. I was just thinking that it was a fluke, so I picked up a recent yearbook and looked through it and 60% of the girls in my high school now are banging. what the fuck.

I remeber listening to the radio for hours waiting for those songs that you wanted to tape so you could listen to them over and over again. Sometimes I would listen to the radio for like 4 hours just waiting for one song. Then when it would come on you would start taping it and someone fucks with the antenna and it gets all static and you listen to this bunk copy of a song with a big chunk of static in the middle of the song and shit.

kids do have it easier today with their fancy internet, their remote controls, their import cars with leather seats, their good looking girls.

Mon May 19, 2003 12:38 pm

MessiahCarey

Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 10924

hugh grants hooker wrote: i agree with everything you said, but...

i think WE were the spoiled ones when it comes to cartoons. sure, we only got them once per week. but what we watched on that one day was much better than thier current 24-7 cartoon options.
just for example, we had: turbo teen, transformers, he-man, shirt-tales, gummi bears, voltron, the alf cartoon, etc...

today they have:... nothing. they gotta watch pokeman, and powerpuff girls. shit like that.
anime is sooo fuckin gay. we had the hookup. i realize that a few of the older cartoons were 'early anime', but fuck... at least their mouths moved when they talked. haha. and when they fought their bodies movied. now the cartoons just strike poses and fly at each other. fuckin gay!

also, check the music we had... now think of what they hear now on the radio. ugh.

i'd rather grow up in the 80's than now.

No doubt.

Mon May 19, 2003 1:08 pm

am01ne

Joined: 23 Apr 2003
Posts: 563
Location: Cybertron

Sarcastro wrote: see I disagree with the cartoons rant, because if you actually watch cartoons now a days, which I (sadly) do a lot of, you realize that except for certain japanese anime (Beyblades, digimon, etc.), cartoons have actually become a lot more complex and a lot more intelligent and appeal to a larger demographic because they have much better writing and the jokes are understood by even older people, just watch dexter's lab, or fairly odd parents, or cow and chicken (RIP) and you'll never be able to find a show like that in the 80's.

As far as action cartoons (Transformers, He-Man, etc.) the Japanese anime more than make up for them, just look at show's like Gundam Wing and Dragon Ball Z, and Evangelion.

I think the reason every keeps saying that 80's cartoons are better is because they no longer watch cartoons on a consistent basis, and they no longer remember all those crappy cartoons that were in the mix of the goodness (don't get me wrong though, a lot of 80's cartoons were amazing). And let's not forget, the Spiderman series didn't start till the early 90's and that, to this day, is THE greatest action cartoon series ever made.

and now you all know how big of a loser I am, thank you for reading this crap though.

I dont want to get started on this but Ill just say that Cow & Chicken and Dexters Lab would not exist today if it wasnt for the works produced by Hanna Barbera Studios in the mid 80's.

Also Cow & Chicken has been off the air for over 4 years already, that cartoon is not exactly recent, in fact it's more than half a decade old and its the most blatantly obvious spin-off of earlier cartoon series which basically directed animation into the 90's with shows like Ren & Stimpy & 2 Stupid Dogs, etc. Not to mention the many spin-offs of earlier shows from the 60's/70's that were later rehashed.

Dexters Lab is also not a new series, the first pilot episode aired in 95 and it was actually created 2 years prior... so far the only 2 shows you named which you are claiming to be examples of how cartoons have improved through the generations, are actually representative of the total opposite.

These are cartoons that no longer exist and with the lack of quality network television programming in general, let alone the lack of effort or even care being put out by studios in regards to classic animation, I doubt shows of this quality will ever exist again.

Look at what's happening with Disney... one of the renowned originators of animation and its totally abandoned its foundations. You think cable television really gives a fuck what it shows to children nowadays as long as it generates profit?

Name me one cartoon or even innovative director of recent years that would appeal to both younger and mature audiences alike and I'll explain to you why the 1980's was a culminating decade in modern cartooning.

Mon May 19, 2003 1:08 pm

natas sevol dog

Joined: 02 Dec 2002
Posts: 345
Location: dallas area

powerpuff girls(ya its kinda old)
spongebob squarepants

those are the only two shows that are good for adults also that I can think of